1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image radiographing system and a portable radiographing information apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In a field of medicine, a medical image radiographing (or tomographing) system having a computed tomographing apparatus (hereinafter, named “computed tomography (CT)”), a computed radiation image radiographing apparatus (hereinafter, named “computed radiography (CR)”), a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (hereinafter, named “magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)”) or the like has been used. In this medical image radiographing system, a patient denoting a subject is radiographed, and a radiographed medical image is obtained as digital image data.
In the CR, a photostimulable phosphor plate with a photostimulable phosphor layer formed on a support member is in use. In radiographing, radiations transmitted through a subject are absorbed in the photostimulable phosphor layer, and an amount of radiation energy corresponding to the radiation transmittance of each part of the subject is accumulated in the photostimulable phosphor layer to form a latent image in the photostimulable phosphor layer. Thereafter, the photostimulable phosphor layer is scanned by excitation light such as laser light or the like to release the accumulated radiation energy as fluorescence, and the fluorescence is photoelectrically converted to an image signal. The image signal is read out to obtain a medical image.
The medical image radiographing-system described above is classified into a fixed type system and a movable type system.
In the fixed type medical image radiographing system, a radiographing and reading apparatus having the photostimulable phosphor plate is fixedly arranged in a radiographing room to perform the radiographing and reading-out. In this system, a radiographed image of the radiographing can be read out from the photostimulable phosphor plate as data of a digital image in succession to the radiographing.
In the movable type medical image radiographing system, because patients cannot go to a room having a fixed type radiographing apparatus when they are in a just-after-medical-operation condition, seriously injured and/or the like, the radiographing of the patients is performed at visited patient's positions by using both a movable radiographing apparatus (hereinafter, named a portable radiographing apparatus) applied to a doctor's round of visits and a cassette accommodating the photostimulable phosphor plate. After the radiographing, a radiographed image is read out from the cassette by using a reader privately used for the cassette, and data of a digital image is obtained.
In this movable type medical image radiographing system, an examination operator generally performs the radiographing according to following procedure.
(1) In a system (hereinafter, named “hospital information system (HIS)”) managing information obtained in a hospital or a system (hereinafter, named “radiology information system (RIS)”) managing information obtained in a radiation treatment section, radiographing order information prepared in response to each order of a doctor is printed out on an order sheet. The radiographing order information includes patient information of a radiographed patient such as a name, a sex and the like and radiographing information such as a radiographic part of the patient, a radiographing method and the like. Therefore, the radiographing order information indicates how a specified patient is radiographed.
(2) The portable radiographing apparatus and the cassette are carried to each hospital room in which one patient stays.
(3) The patient to be radiographed and the radiographic part of the patient are specified according to the radiographing order information printed out on the order sheet, and the radiographing is performed according to the radiographing order information by using the radiographing apparatus and the cassette.
(4) After the radiographing, the cassette having a medical image of the patient is attached to the reader privately used for the cassette, and the radiographed medical image is read out. Thereafter the radiographing order information corresponding to the read-out medical image is identified.
In recent years, to read out the medical image recorded in each cassette, the cassette is specified by attaching identification information expressed by a barcode to the surface of the cassette and reading out the barcode by a barcode reader.
Meanwhile, to prevent the barcode reader from reading out twice the barcode as an error case, a technique to prevent the reread-out of the barcode for a predetermined period of time after the read-out of the barcode has been disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication (Tokkai) 11-53465 (pp. 5-8 and FIG. 1, and hereinafter named a patent document).
However, in the radiographing method described above, the radiographing order information is printed out on a paper medium such as the order sheet for each radiographing order. Therefore, when there is/are a or a plurality of radiographing orders for one patient, the handling of one or more pieces of radiographing order information for the patient becomes troublesome, and there is a case where the cassette and the radiographing order information used for the radiographing of the patient cannot be specified. Further the radiographing order information includes image processing conditions of the radiographed medical image, and the image processing appropriate to the radiographic part of the patient is performed for the medical image read out from the cassette according to the radiographing order information after the radiographing. Therefore, when the correspondence of a medical image to radiographing order information different from the correspondence of the medical image to proper radiographing order information really corresponding to the medical image is erroneously set, the image processing cannot be appropriately performed for the medical image, and there is a possibility that the accuracy in diagnosis for the patient is lowered. Accordingly, pieces of radiographing order information require to be handled accurately and safely.
Further, each cassette can be used many times by erasing the radiographed medical image of the cassette after the read-out of the medical image, and it is impossible to judge whether or not the cassette records the medical image. Therefore, there is a possibility that the cassette is erroneously used for next radiographing when the read-out of the medical image from the cassette is not completed.